Given the endless time we all spend with our noses in our phones, it may not be too surprising to hear that the smartphone has taken over the tech world. But the smartphone’s dominance is so complete, says a16z’s Benedict Evans, that it’s useful to think of it as the sun, the object around which everything else in the (technology) planetary system revolves. Technology meets astronomy, plus Android’s Stagefright bug, and why three German carmakers are getting into the software business in this segment of the a16z Podcast.
Smartphone components have become a kind of Lego kit for all kinds of consumer technology. Cameras, sensors, and batteries all get mixed and matched in different permutations to create different gadgets. It might be something that enables your connected home, offers a video capture system for cops, or powers a remote video chat/treat machine for your dog (I know, we all need that). But since practically every component is now available to everyone -- and the manufacturing expertise to tie it all together as well -- it becomes very hard to distinguish via hardware alone. Software is the key to breaking from the pack, say Benedict Evans and Steven Sinofsky in this post-2016 CES podcast. What Benedict and Steven saw and learned from this year’s gathering of the consumer electronics industry in this segment of the a16z Podcast.
After the smartphone, what business has the global scale (in terms of people and profits) that make it attractive for tech companies to turn their attention and capital towards? The answer, argues a16z’s Benedict Evans, is the automotive industry. Sure, cars are mobile -- but what do our smartphones have to do with our rides? More than we might expect. Evans offers his vision of the future of cars, and perhaps the future of today’s biggest technology companies. Who will build these cars, who will own them, and who (or what) will drive them? We discuss this and more in this segment of the a16z Podcast.
AI is reshaping the tech landscape, but a big question remains: is this just another platform shift, or something closer to electricity or computing in scale and impact? Some industries may be transformed. Others may barely feel it. Tech giants are racing to reorient their strategies, yet most people still struggle to find an everyday use case. That tension tells us something important about where we actually are. In this episode, technology analyst and former a16z partner Benedict Evans joins General Partner Erik Torenberg to break down what is real, what is hype, and how much history can guide us. They explore bottlenecks in compute, the surprising products that still do not exist, and how companies like Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and OpenAI are positioning themselves. Finally, they look ahead at what would need to happen for AI to one day be considered even more transformative than the internet. (00:00) Intro (01:07) AI's Impact, Platform Shifts and Historical Comparisons (03:12) Generative AI: Potential and Challenges (06:12) AI's Market Dynamics and Investment (08:28) AI Deployment and Use Cases (10:22) AI's Future and Speculations (19:33) Generative AI in Practice (29:27) New Behaviors and Market Opportunities (31:29) Understanding Law Firms' Needs (32:05) The Role of User Interfaces (33:40) Machine Learning and Interns (35:26) The Evolution of Tech Products (39:43) The Competitive Landscape of AI (43:17) The Future of AI Models (45:27) Impact on Various Industries (46:49) Apple's Unique Position (50:08) Strategic Questions for Tech Giants (58:44) Reflecting on AI's Potential Resources: Follow Benedict on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benedictevans/ Benedict's ‘AI eats the world’ presentation: https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details, please see [a16z.com/disclosures](http://a16z.com/disclosures).
Benedict Evans is a former partner at Andreessen Horowitz and runs a newsletter with ~200k subscribers. We discuss smart glasses, amplified intelligence, robot dogs, the decentralization of media, and how AI is disrupting the very concept of user interfaces. If these ideas interest you, we're working on this kind of technology at Network School. You can apply online at https://ns.com. OUTLINE 00:00 - Intro to Benedict Evans 01:38 - The smartphone dividend: how mobile enabled drones and VR 05:18 - Flying cars were like houseboats: a bad house and a bad boat 10:33 - What is "lowercase" tech that exists today that will go "uppercase?" 14:39 - Overestimating agentic AI 16:36 - Traditional software is easy to explain to machines, while machine learning is hard 20:59 - Phrases of power 26:27 - Google Trends: "Best" vs. "Cheap": 34:49 - AI is great for researching things you already know a lot about 46:18 - Uber replaces taxis, Airbnb complements hotels 51:18 - The history of the elevator 58:50 - China disrupts Red America, the Internet disrupts Blue America 01:06:46 - Why are there so many new billionaires? 01:12:01 - The Internet is to America what America was to Britain 01:27:40 - Benedict Evans' take on crypto 01:30:12 - Crypto is for transactions that are very large, very small, or very fast 01:46:13 - Blockspace is to crypto what bandwidth is to the web 01:54:40 - AI makes everything fake, crypto makes it real again CITATIONS (1) High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove-ebook/dp/B015VACHOK/ (2) Techlash: https://www.amazon.com/Techlash-Tech-Crisis-Communication-ebook/dp/B08L3BMQNW/ (3) eHang - “Chinese Flying Cars”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTu4_8QznE (4) Robodog Museum of the Future: https://x.com/DXBMediaOffice/status/1614611913383763971 (5) GPS History : Global Positioning System History - NASA (6) Regulatory challenges in US Consumer Drones: https://www.wsj.com/articles/regulation-clips-wings-of-u-s-drone-makers-1412546849 (7) Understanding double descent: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.10459 (8) The Deep Research Problem: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2025/2/17/the-deep-research-problem (9) ARC AGI: https://arcprize.org/arc-agi (10) Uber and Airbnb didn’t sell software: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2025/3/14/what-kind-of-disruption (11) AI Use cases: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2024/4/19/looking-for-ai-use-cases (12) The Elephant Curve: https://academic.oup.com/wber/article-abstract/30/2/203/2224294 (13) China’s rise to manufacturing dominance: https://www.statista.com/chart/20859/chinese-and-us-share-of-global-manufacturing-output/ (14) Print media disruption : https://www.offsetprinting.info/2020/07/newspaper-industry-continues-decline.html (15) Evolution of Earth’s economic centre of gravity : https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-the-earths-economic-centre-of-gravity-from-AD1-to-2025-4_fig3_271450876 (16) UN Membership growth: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/growth-in-un-membership (17) Number of countries in the world over time: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-countries?focus=~Butcher+and+Griffiths (18) Balaji on crypto ten years ago - https://a16z.com/bitcoin-and-blockchain/ (19) Stable coin surpasses Visa & Mastercard : https://crypto.news/ark-invest-stablecoin-transaction-value-in-2024-surpasses-visa-and-mastercard/ (20) Senate passes stablecoin bill : https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-senate-passes-stablecoin-bill-milestone-crypto-industry-2025-06-17/ (21) YC on code developed by AI : https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/a-quarter-of-startups-in-ycs-current-cohort-have-codebases-that-are-almost-entirely-ai-generated/ (22) Alex Tabarrok on partisanship when money is on line: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/55494.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com SOCIAL https://ben-evans.com https://ns.com
Erik Torenberg speaks with tech analyst Benedict Evans about the current state of AI, what has changed over the past year, and which questions remain unanswered. The conversation covers coding agents, foundation models, AI infrastructure spending, software economics, and the tension between today's AI excitement and the long-term realities of technology adoption. Evans discusses why coding has emerged as AI's first breakout use case, how previous platform shifts can help frame the current moment, and why many of the most important questions about AI remain unresolved. Along the way, they explore the future of software, enterprise adoption, consumer behavior, and whether AI models ultimately capture value themselves or become infrastructure for the next generation of applications. Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 00:44 - What's Changed Since Last Year 05:53 - OpenAI vs Anthropic Strategy 10:31 - The Pricing Crunch & Platform History 22:48 - What Comes After Coding 38:18 - AI & the Future of Enterprise Software 48:43 - The CapEx Problem 55:07 - Will Models Become Commodities? Resources: Follow Benedict Evans on X: https://x.com/benedictevans Follow Erik Torenberg on X: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Read Content Isn’t King: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/7/13/content-isnt-king Read Netflix is Not a Tech Company: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/7/31/Netflix Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://twitter.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see http://a16z.com/disclosures.